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- LPFC Driver Release Notes:
- =============================================================================
- IMPORTANT:
- Starting in the 8.0.17 release, the driver began to be targeted strictly
- toward the upstream kernel. As such, we removed #ifdefs for older kernels
- (pre 2.6.10). The 8.0.16 release should be used if the driver is to be
- run on one of the older kernels.
- The proposed modifications to the transport layer for FC remote ports
- and extended attribute support is now part of the upstream kernel
- as of 2.6.12. We no longer need to provide patches for this support,
- nor a *full* version which has old an new kernel support.
-
- The driver now requires a 2.6.12 (if pre-release, 2.6.12-rc1) or later
- kernel.
-
- Please heed these dependencies....
- ********************************************************************
- The following information is provided for additional background on the
- history of the driver as we push for upstream acceptance.
- Cable pull and temporary device Loss:
- In older revisions of the lpfc driver, the driver internally queued i/o
- received from the midlayer. In the cases where a cable was pulled, link
- jitter, or a device temporarily loses connectivity (due to its cable
- being removed, a switch rebooting, or a device reboot), the driver could
- hide the disappearance of the device from the midlayer. I/O's issued to
- the LLDD would simply be queued for a short duration, allowing the device
- to reappear or link come back alive, with no inadvertent side effects
- to the system. If the driver did not hide these conditions, i/o would be
- errored by the driver, the mid-layer would exhaust its retries, and the
- device would be taken offline. Manual intervention would be required to
- re-enable the device.
- The community supporting kernel.org has driven an effort to remove
- internal queuing from all LLDDs. The philosophy is that internal
- queuing is unnecessary as the block layer already performs the
- queuing. Removing the queues from the LLDD makes a more predictable
- and more simple LLDD.
- As a potential new addition to kernel.org, the 8.x driver was asked to
- have all internal queuing removed. Emulex complied with this request.
- In explaining the impacts of this change, Emulex has worked with the
- community in modifying the behavior of the SCSI midlayer so that SCSI
- devices can be temporarily suspended while transport events (such as
- those described) can occur.
- The proposed patch was posted to the linux-scsi mailing list. The patch
- is contained in the 2.6.10-rc2 (and later) patch kits. As such, this
- patch is part of the standard 2.6.10 kernel.
- By default, the driver expects the patches for block/unblock interfaces
- to be present in the kernel. No #define needs to be set to enable support.
- Kernel Support
- This source package is targeted for the upstream kernel only. (See notes
- at the top of this file). It relies on interfaces that are slowing
- migrating into the kernel.org kernel.
- At this time, the driver requires the 2.6.12 (if pre-release, 2.6.12-rc1)
- kernel.
- If a driver is needed for older kernels please utilize the 8.0.16
- driver sources.
- Patches
- Thankfully, at this time, patches are not needed.
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